People of today are just as smart. It was only simpler then. Math has grown in complexity and has caused mathematicians to become more specialized. So, in order to see the good stuff and the smart people of today, it requires going deep in to those specialized fields. It's a matter of accessibility.
> People of today are just as smart. It was only simpler then.
An additional effect is that when people learn the major past discoveries (e.g., calculus, mechanics), the version that is taught is often significantly different from how the discoverer cast it or how the idea was originally formulated. Years of teaching, refinement, and finding other techniques to solve problems or prove theorems makes it easier to learn. One example is "Maxwell's Equations" for electro-magnetism; the most commonly used modern form consisting of 4 equations was condensed from Maxwell's 20 equations by Oliver Heaviside:
I think all is equal. Yes, you learn calculus in high school now, but we also have Geometric Algebra coming back since the 80s, which allows for succinct symbolic expression of geometrical calculations. This and the field of computation, which for the mathematician is like the telescope was for the astronomers of old.
I think the room for discovery, great discoveries, is still within reach as before. New tools, new concepts, and new challenges. I am still amazed at what could be hand calc'ed or graphed by some of these incredible mathematicians in the past. Amazing.
The fact that we have institutions and foundations like the Santa Fe Institute and The Long Now among many others, show the big questions are still being tackled, but of course, many of us while away in the trenches of technology, and its hard to see what the brightest are up to sometimes.
